Finding Dwight Hillis Wilson

Last night while browsing through my RSS feeds I happened across a blog post on the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society News website requesting help in finding a photo of Dwight Hillis Wilson. Dwight Hillis Wilson (1909-1962), a native of Raleigh, NC , was a former archivist at Fisk University (here in my city of Nashville, Tennessee), a professor at Morris Brown College in Atlanta, and also worked as an archivist at the Allied Force Records Administration.

The librarian and genealogist that I am, I quickly started looking to see what information I could find. Mr. Wilson’s obituary provides further details of his life, including that he attended Shaw University in Raleigh. Noting this, I thought to perhaps look for Shaw University yearbooks. I sent a couple of emails out, but then again, it was late Saturday night — I knew I’d not hear anything until Monday at the earliest. My next thought then was to look for family members; that’s what genealogists do right?

15 minutes later I had a telephone number for Mr. Wilson’s son! I called him today and he says that he can indeed provide a photo of his father to the group! Is that not excellent or what! I am looking forward to seeing how this develops!